Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Apple Computers has issued subpoenas to the ISP of a journalist who reports on Apple products, demanding the identity of a source for a story on an Apple product. One of the issues in the case is whether a journalist who publishes on a weblog can claim the "newsgatherers' privilege" recognized by the federal Constitution, or the journalist's shield that is part of California's Constitution. CIS represents a group of organizations that protect journalist’s press freedoms, the creator of a tool that allows Internet users to easily search online news publications, and dozens of “webloggers” who publish on the Internet. They want the Court to find that people who publish in online news sources are subject to the same constitutional protections under the reporter’s shield as reporters who publish in traditional media, and are asking the court to adopt the functional test articulated in Schoen v. Schoen, 5 F. 3d 1289, 1293 (9th, 1993) which asks whether the reporter had “the intent to use materials—sought, gathered, or received—to disseminate information to the public and [whether] such intent existed at the inception of the newsgathering process.” More information is available at the EFF Apple v. Does website.